Mountain Goats – Get Lonely

“Get Lonely” is every bit as assured as it’s predecessor, “The Sunset Tree”, but the mood is entirely different. “Sunset” chronicled the fraught, violent relationship between John Darnielle and his stepfather and derived it’s power from an unblinking exorcism of personal demons, while “Get Lonely” is the haunted aftermath. It’s a reflective, intimate record. The mood is one of bittersweet resignation rather than cathartic release. It’s a quiet triumph, murmuring with a modest but entirely surefooted confidence. An uncannily coherent and subtly redemptive record which will come to be seen as Mountain Goats’ most resonant, assured, and magical collection of songs so far.